


Damaged

by xantissa



Series: Carnival of Rust [29]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-01 20:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is time to start gathering the new pods. Jim is out of commision. His crew is being slowly assigned somewhere else. Starfleet is starting to poke their nose in unexpectedly. Jim is not exactly up for dealing with all of that on top of his own problems. Also, Scotty might die of heart attack becasue the Augments are all insane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This part will consist of a whole bunch of scenes happening mostly parrarel to each other and be mostly plot oriented. Time to hurry this thing along some.  
> AN2: I was two weeks without my laptop and now I am going to be a week without internet, so no updates for two weeks at the very least.

Jim looked at his Chief Engineer who was pacing with manic steps from one end of the room to the other. He was doing it so rapidly Jim's neck was already hurting from watching the back and forth.

"Calm down Scotty, it's going to be very easy. You said yourself that a friend of yours made sure to lose the shipping manifests. The crate containing the pod is sitting in the back of an almost forgotten warehouse. All you need to do is show up with the doctored manifest we made for the nearest available warehouse, access the section where the pod is being held, switch the crates and take it. It won't even be guarded after so many months in storage." Jim tried to calm the man.

"Last time you told me that all I needed to do was check out a set of coordinates, and look where that got us!" Scotty yelled, flailing his arms around.

"Nothing will happen to you. You will have Katya as backup in case you need a fighter on this mission. However much I doubt it."

"But why me?" The engineer whined.

Jim sighed. "I can't go, for obvious reasons," Jim said gesticulating to his leg. "McCoy is a doctor, not a pilot so in this situation he is useless. Sulu is assigned Earth-side at the moment. Chekov, while competent is just too young and inexperienced."

"Spock?" Scotty offered plaintively. 

Jim tightened his lips.

"I sent Spock and Uhura for an extended leave of absence. Officially he wants to introduce her to his father on New Vulcan. Unofficially I need him absolutely outside any and all suspicion." Jim needed Spock to be the fallback plan, the only person who could become the Captain of the Enterprise should Jim be relieved of his post. Therefore Spock had to be absent every time they did something even remotely suspicious and publicly playing up their disagreements, with Spock filling out more and more terse reports about Jim's conduct.

"I only have you, Scotty."

The engineer stopped finally, all but wilting.

"And the Augments," The other man added.

Jim shot him a look. "You think I would trust them alone?"

"All right. But why sent Katya with me? Why not one of the others?"

"You want to go with Khan? Or Turin?"

The engineer thought about the vicious and cold way Khan killed Admiral Marcus in front of them and the unapologetic danger Turin represented.

"You are right. Katya is absolutely the best choice."

* * *

Khan stood in the tiny, double quarter that was assigned to Katya upon her waking up and watched her prepare for her mission. She’d dyed her flaming red hair a more forgettable brown color earlier that day and now pulled it into a conservative bun on top of her head. She had used makeup too, making herself look a little plainer, gave herself shadows under her eyes, and painted her lips with a pale color, making her look more washed out, tired, more befitting the image of a hard-working, lower middle class woman who tried to earn her keep as a pilot in commercial shipping.

She pulled up a pants/tunic combination of dark grey material that seemed to be a standard for shipping pilots and which made her look even more unremarkable.

She was completely unarmed and had no means of communicating with Khan.

"Mr. Scott has barely any experience in undercover missions. If anything goes wrong, you have to keep him alive and make sure the pod is safe. Try to avoid opening the capsule by yourself."

She finished tying her shoes and nodded.

"I am not the best undercover operative you have, and my hacking skills are severely lacking. They always were." 

"You will be fine. There shouldn't be trouble, the base is barely protected anyway. You have to worry most about not being noticed, not shooting your way out."

She nodded again. There was that aura of stillness, calmness about her that didn't sit right with Khan. 

Katya didn't used to be that way.

He closed the distance between them and touched her face, trying to push the bond between them closer to the surface.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked softly. He didn't ask if she was okay, off all people, he was the one who knew best just how far from 'fine' she was.

She raised her pale green eyes to him, still calm but also determined.

"You will hate me if I ask this of you," she whispered.

Khan pulled her closer, embracing her slighter frame and pressing a kiss to her temple. She smelled of chemicals from the dye but underneath it, there was still the familiar scent of one of his lovers.

She sighed and melted into him, letting him take most of her weight. 

He could feel steady puffs of warm air she exhaled over his neck as he held her close, wishing with all his might he could just erase her pain.

"There's nothing you could do to make me hate you. I wasn't angry when you came to me and said you fell in love with somebody and wanted to get married. I also didn't hate you when you came to me and asked for a child, a child I gave you but agreed never to call my own, so that your husband could be the father he wanted to be." It was difficult for him, watching Katya carry the child to term and keep away from her, watch her be happy with her husband and their new baby girl. The secret would come out eventually, since all adult female Augments could only become pregnant by him, but he’d hoped that it would be many, many years in the future. And if their plan had worked, Katya's daughter would have had many other children around her to play with and maybe she wouldn't even care who her biological father was.

The woman in his arms shifted, putting her arms around him and whispered finally,

"After we achieve the next stage of our plan, will you grant me Permanent Leave?"

Khan let her go as if she was on fire and stepped back.

"How can you even ask me that?!" His voice broke embarrassingly in the middle.

She looked him in the eye, calm and fearless, and set.

"I will not go against your will. You are my General, my lover, father of my child. I swore to give up my own will upon embarking on this mission, and I will serve you the best of my abilities. But if... When we reach the next stage, I will no longer be as crucial to the mission as I am now." Her voice never wavered, never broke. "I cannot live like this. I don't want to. So I am asking you to end this misery. I am asking you to grant me freedom from pain. I am asking for something to live for in the meantime."

Khan pushed the bond as far as he could with her, but all he felt was calm purpose. She was not hysterical, this wasn't an impulsive request. 

She was absolutely sure she wanted this.

"You never let me see how much pain you are in," he said, controlling his voice carefully, making sure it wouldn't break this time.

She smiled at him, a horrid, sad thing that had no place on her face.

"Neither do you. You keep yourself so closed off, most of the time it's hard to tell if you are even alive." She admonished him gently. 

She wouldn't push him further though. She understood.

Khan closed his eyes, feeling another door in his soul closing. There were so many of them there already.

"Why do you want it to be me?" He didn't want to ask the question, he really didn't. But the words escaped him anyway.

She came closer, putting her palms on his chest.

"I know it's unfair to you. I know. But I need it to be you." She looked him in the eyes again, sad but unafraid. "I know you will make it painless."

He closed his eyes tightly to keep himself from crying, because tears wouldn't do anything at the moment.,

Eventually he nodded.

After everything she suffered, everything she lost, everything she would yet suffer in his orders, she deserved that one choice to be absolutely hers.

"Of course. If you come to me again after we reach the next stage successfully, I will personally grant you Permanent Leave," he said roughly.

She smiled at him again, with that horrid thing that was her smile now and leaned up to kiss his lips. It was a soft, chaste kiss. Just a press of dry lips and a sense of overwhelming gratitude through the bond.

"Thank you."

With those words she turned around and left the quarters to meet up with the Captain and Mr. Scott in the small shuttle bay.

Khan didn't follow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Khan is not as in control as he thinks he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is completly my beta's fault. Darry send me a poster of Khan. I drooled. This was the result.

It was odd, walking the Enterprise when it was this empty,after he’d almost got used to the rhythm of the ship being full of engineers and workers rebuilding her. Now it was both full of strangers and empty of the usual crew.

He walked quickly, hating to admit he was almost used to the cane he had to use. The sound of his shuffling steps still made him grit his teeth. Lately Bones stopped had chiding Kirk for walking too much. The doctor looked a lot like Jim felt. He had dark circles under his eyes and was paler than usual. The fact that he’d stopped with the constant nagging spoke loud and clear to Jim that there really was nothing that could save his leg. When the time of his annual health check came, Jim knew he would lose Enterprise and be assigned some kind of office job. It was almost funny. He’d been shot at, stabbed, beaten, irradiated to death, and he’d always come through on top, always on top. He’d saved the whole planet more than once. He’d survived everything the universe had thrown at him.

However he was damn sure he was not going to survive a desk job.

As he rounded the corner of the eerily empty corridor, lit only by lights at 50% to save energy, he saw Khan walking towards him.

The dark-haired Augment was walking with his usual grace, body so balanced and so strong, it made Jim's breath catch each and every time he saw him. This man was a predator, a dangerous and vicious warrior. Jim was used to seeing this kind of fierceness in some of the other more warlike races, but not in humans anymore. So every time he caught sight of that predator’s grace, that barely restrained primal sexuality, he felt his heart skip a beat. It was downright embarrassing how much he not only wanted Khan, but still noticed him. It was impossible to just walk past him, to ignore the kind of sexual magnetism the Augment had. The fact that Jim was sure most of that effect was a conscious effort on Khan's part didn't help any. He still ran his eyes from that strong neck, down the muscled, powerful chest, and lower down the trim figure before letting his eyes travel up again to meet the intense grey ones.

He expected the intensity, the focus that always, always sent a shiver down his spine. What he didn't expect was the barely-controlled wild expression in Khan's eyes. His eyes burned with emotion that looked surprisingly close to pain.

The Augment locked his eyes with Jim and moved towards him a bit faster. The blond was so taken aback by the storm barely hidden by the facade of control, he all but yelped in surprise when the Augment caught his wrist in a tight, almost painful grip as he drew close.

"Wha..." Jim started asking before yelping again when Khan jerked him sharply, making him pivot awkwardly on his good leg. Before he had the time to realize what was happening, Khan pushed him back and sideways. He heard the distinctive sound of a door sliding open and then felt a brutal grip on both his arms. Khan half-pushed, half-carried him into what turned out to be some kind of small room, a service access most probably. Jim didn't have the time to look around as he felt his back hit the wall. He was hanging in Khan's grip, feet not really touching the floor anymore. He was still clutching the cane in his hand but instead of doing something to defend himself, maybe forcing Khan to let go of him, all Jim could do was stare at him. The dark haired man looked totally wrecked up close. His eyes were hiding some kind of storm that Jim wished Khan would admit to. He wanted to help, to ease whatever was driving this strong man to the edge of madness.

He opened his mouth to ask what happened to break Khan's composure quite so badly, but Khan was faster.

"Don't talk." Khan's voice sent a shiver of desire down Jim's spine. He was stupidly hard from just hearing the man speak. "Don't fight."

Jim was just opening his mouth to protest, because really, submission wasn't in his nature, and while he liked Khan's more domineering side, he was not going to just roll over because the man ordered him to.

"Please." Khan added, his voice like velvet on gravel, a rumble that vibrated right through Jim's mind straight to his cock.

He closed his mouth with a snap, bewildered by Khan actually asking for something for once.

He nodded.

A little of that wild tension left the Augment and Jim felt himself being lowered to the floor. As soon as he regained his balance, Khan was turning him around to face the wall. He let go of the cane hurriedly to free his hands and get some leverage before he smashed his nose on the paneling.

"Just give me this," Khan whispered, pressing his body against Jim's, a long line of heat and desire down his back, his voice as wrecked as his eyes.

As soon as Jim was fairly stable, Khan started working on his pants, unfastening them and pushing them down his thighs urgently. 

Jim hissed as he fought to keep stable while the other man roughly divested him of his clothing. He was used to Khan being a bit rough, it was something that turned him on quite a lot, but this time was different. This time it was as if Jim was nothing more than a sexual object, a means to slake the lust. Khan leaned on him harder, pinning him to the wall, his teeth closing threateningly on the blond’s nape. He bit down in an unabashed show of dominance and aggression and Jim felt himself go blindingly hard. When he felt the hard length of the Augment’s cock against his back, Jim had to bite down on his lip to stop himself from moaning.

It took him a moment to realize what the other man was planning. He felt the large, surprisingly graceful hands grip his ass and he almost choked on his moan.

“Fuck,” he hissed as he felt the head of Khan’s penis push at him. There was no prep, no lube but the natural precome already there. He could both hear and feel the laboured breathing of the other man on his neck. Khan wasn’t trying to push in all at once, but he was not going to stop either. The strong, slow thrusts were gradually pushing his cock past the resistance. It burned. It hurt but it was also very much happening, Jim’s body already opening to accept the intruder. He rested his hot face against the cold wall and closed his eyes, whimpering. He was obscenely grateful for the fact that Khan had been fucking him for months already, teaching his body how to accept him. Between his experience and the bit of enhancement retained after both times the Augment’s blood was used to heal Jim, he was actually able to take Khan dry like this. It hurt but it also felt obscenely dirty and hot as hell, the other man just pinning him like this, just pushing his pants down and fucking him.

Khan was a length of damp heat behind him, a solid unmovable muscle, his unyielding cock a line of searing heat inside Jim, seemingly the only thing keeping him upright at the moment. As the Augment bottomed out and started slow, deep fucking that pushed all the air out of Jim’s lungs, the blond realised he’d raised one of his hands to shield his face from the wall and was actually biting on his own wrist to both muffle the desperate sounds and to release some of the tension. 

Each time Khan pushed in, his balls slapped Jim’s ass. The sound was quiet, but it rang like a bell in the blond’s ears. It felt so wicked, so wrong to be behaving like this. Just letting the other man use him like a hole, like a toy. But it made Jim so desperately hard, he didn’t think he could manage a single word if he had to.

It didn’t take long for the Augment to finish, his breath stuttered behind Jim and then the captain felt the spill of searingly hot release inside him. He shuddered, so turned on it was more than a little painful. What was worse, he had no idea why it got to him quite this much. Usually he was the one in control, in the lead. He’d had many, many conquests in his life. He loved women in all their incarnations, human or alien, he appreciated beauty and sensuality in whatever form it took. He’d had a few male lovers, but nothing serious, nothing even close to the intensity of what he had with Khan. 

Jim made another horridly embarrassing sound as he felt Khan pull back, separating their bodies with another filthy, sucking noise that only served to turn Jim on even more. He tasted copper in his mouth and realized he’d bit right through the skin on his arm. 

Khan shifted behind him, sneaking a powerful arm around Jim’s chest and leaning back, taking all of the blond’s weight, and making him flail for a moment.

“Fucking please,” Jim moaned brokenly, desperate for release and unreasonably angry at Khan for already getting his.

“Shh.” Khan slid his other arm down Jim’s arched chest, towards the straining erection and cupped as much of it as he could, along with the painfully sensitive testicles, before squeezing slightly. It was enough. This small bit of stimulation was all that Jim needed to be pushed over the edge. He came so hard, he blacked out for a couple of seconds. 

When he came to again, he was still being held securely by the unbreakable grip of his augmented lover. As soon as Khan realized Jim was awake, he let go. When Jim felt him pull back, he quickly caught the other man’s wrist to stop him. 

Moving around to look into Khan’s face was awkward, having to maneuver on only one leg. The older man looked wrecked, but not in the way a good fuck should leave him. There was something wild, barely controlled in his eyes, an emotion Jim couldn’t interpret. 

“What happened?” he asked.

Khan looked at him, his grey eyes stormy, and lied,“Nothing.” His voice was still stormy, angry somehow. “Absolutely nothing.”

Jim kept his grip on the other man’s wrist, feeling the tension in the muscles beneath his fingers.

“Liar,” he whispered bitterly, again aware of all the things Khan would never share with him.

The other man growled and closed in again. The scent of sweat and sex immediately enveloped Jim, he could almost taste the salt on the pale man’s skin. 

Whatever Jim expected, it wasn’t a kiss. It was slow and deep, Khan taking hold of his face and tilting it to a better angle. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, and Jim was absolutely sure he’d had better kisses in his life, more skilled ones, more passionate.

This was the only one however that made him feel surprised, confused and lost. Nothing about sexuality or people’s bodies had ever made him feel unsure before. This time was like he’d never been kissed before.

Khan said nothing, just looked at Jim with that unreadable expression before pulling his pants up and leaving the room. It left Jim with not only the need to clean up the mess, as seemed to be the usual for Khan these days, but also with the uncontested lie still ringing in the air.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scotty sees much more than people expect of him and Turin has surprises.

Montgomery Scott was bored. He was so damn bored he was going to sit down and cry any moment now. He regretted doing such a good job with the preflight check, because now he had nothing to do any more.

 

As a commercial transport vessel of this size, they had no warp capability. It meant almost two days’ travel with nothing, absolutely nothing to do. For the most part, they weren’t even piloting by hand, just following an established trade route.

 

He’d already made minute changes in the engine output, getting another one percent power out of them. He’d also checked and upgraded the life support system and climate control, cleaning every last inch of accessible tubing.

 

After that he slept the required eight hours. Now it was another shift, and he was out of his mind with boredom. In a fit of desperation, he even polished his control panel.

 

Throughout that time, Katya had been reading through piloting manuals and user manuals for the small transport. In a way, Scotty was jealous that she had something to do, something new to learn. It didn’t escape him, though, that she took no enjoyment from this.

 

She was so eerily calm and composed, it was like all emotion was banked in her, smothered to non-existence. The plain brown of her dyed hair only served further to give her a pale and tired look. Scotty found he preferred the wild red hair than this. It at least suggested some life.

 

Scotty might not be the most skilled in judging other people, but he was uncomfortably familiar with this situation. For all of Jim’s or Spock’s smarts, they really were blind sometimes.

 

“I know what you’re planning,” Scotty said finally, unable to just keep quiet. He kept his eyes fixed on the controls, not really seeing them.

 

She was silent for a long time, eyes on the manual in front of her, before she said quietly:

 

“I doubt it.”

 

Scotty snorted.

 

“I had a friend once. In school. She was very smart, very talented. Could have been one of the best damn engineers of this generation. Bad things happened to her.” He quieted for a moment, remembering the bruised look in Anne’s eyes long after the physical bruises were gone. “She never really dealt with it. I guess she had no one to help, and her friends were too young, too blind to see what was going on with her. What I remember the most though is the way she went all calm and quiet one day.” He swallowed audibly. “Everybody thought it was a sign of her getting better. It was a shock, when three months later she was found dead in her own bed. She’d cut her wrists and bled out.”

 

Now he did turn to look at Katya. The other woman still had her eyes glued to the manual, but she wasn’t reading.

 

“When I look at you, it’s like looking at a ghost of her.”

 

This time it was Katya that swallowed dryly, her composure crumbling a little at the edges.

 

“You can’t understand,” she whispered hoarsely, fighting to keep her emotions in check.

 

He leaned back in his chair.

 

“Can’t I? There’s a reason I don’t have a wife, family, children,” he started. It was odd and uncomfortable to be talking about the things he’d never actually talked about. He wouldn’t usually. However even years later, he was sometimes haunted by the memory of Anne’s eyes. Calm. Steady. She seemed so balanced, so serene then. He promised himself never to walk away if he ever saw eyes like that again. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. So here he was now, baring his soul in front of a practical stranger.

 

“It’s because I know I could never love anybody the way I love my work. It wouldn’t be fair. So I chose my work over family, chose space over a wife and children. And I was happy. I was discovering things, doing things, chasing success.” Those were good times. He was happy then. “And then I lost it. I had the work of my life taken away from me. No acknowledgement, no remuneration. What’s more I was practically banished to a freezing, lonely planet to starve from lack of food or maybe die from the ever-present cold. But even the cold wasn’t the worst. It was the fact I couldn’t even work there. There was nothing. No technology, no materials for me to work with. And the only company I had was an alien who couldn’t really communicate with humans.” He looked at the ceiling blinking rapidly. “In one fell swoop I lost everything I loved, everything I sacrificed my whole life for. I had nothing. Nothing but wait for death there.”

 

He wasn’t looking at Katya, but could feel her eyes on him now.

 

“How long were you there?” she asked finally, unwillingly pulled into the story, into the parallels of their lives.

 

“Four years. Four very long years.” He cleared his throat, trying to keep his voice steady and accent to a minimum. “I thought I was going to be there for the rest of my life.”

 

“How did you get out?”

 

Scotty smiled at the memory. He nearly died then too, but it was one of the best memories of his life anyway.

 

“Captain Kirk happened. He wasn’t a captain then, of course. One day he just stumbled in, half-frozen and half-eaten by one of the monsters inhabiting the planet. He proposed a harebrained idea that could kill us all, and then proceeded to change my whole fucking life in one fell swoop.”

 

They were silent for a while then, Scotty remembering the bleakness of his life on Delta Vega and Katya digesting his words.

 

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked finally.

 

“Because I didn’t give up. Half the time I was there, there wasn’t enough food, not enough fuel to warm up, nothing to do but think about all the things I lost. I could have died very easily then. All I needed was to just…put less effort into survival. Just a little.”

 

“But you didn’t. Why?”

 

This time Scotty did look at her, at the pale eyes and even paler face. She was beautiful, objectively speaking, but the lack of emotion in her face was so off-putting, he’d unconsciously categorized her as non-sexual till now.

 

“Because it would have been a damn waste. Life is precious. Unexpected. Rare. You can never know what will happen in a day, a month, a year. If I’d given up then, I would never have met Jim. Not only would I not have got my job back, my whole planet would have been destroyed if I hadn’t helped Jim get back to the _Enterprise._ ”

 

Katya said nothing to this. She went back to her manual, silently dismissing the engineer. However, when Scotty got a look at the progress bar, it wasn’t moving. It gave him hope she would think about the things he said.

 

*       *       *

Jim looked at Turin, surprised at seeing the huge Augment at the door to his personal quarters. It's not like the location was secret but the blond had never actually visited him yet. Jim looked over his shoulder at Bones, sitting in his armchair with an equally baffled expression. The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"Um...hi?" Jim started, caught wrong-footed.

The blond looked him up and down with a quick, assessing gaze and his lips quirked up in a strange expression.

"Unbelievable" he muttered barely audibly under his breath. Without any more explanation he shouldered his way inside.

"Hi Doctor." He greeted the other occupant of the room, placing himself firmly away from the door, making it very hard for Jim to casually kick him out.

The Captain manfully resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Turin definitely didn't show him the amount of deference other crew members did, but somehow it didn't feel demeaning from him. He was just that kind of person. He didn't like Bones, actually every single one of the Augments hated him to a certain degree. It didn't take a genius to realize it wasn't even about Bones, but about being a doctor that raised their hackles so much.

"Okayyyy" Jim drawled, letting the door close. "Something happen?"

Turin looked around the room. It was bigger and a bit more luxurious than the other quarters, but he was a Captain and he was entitled to some privileges on his own ship, damnit.

Eventually Turin spotted the entertainment area and went to the wall it was on. With a few quick commands he had the screen extended and lit up.

"I want to show you something." Turin started speaking while he accessed the Internet and started typing commands. "Now that more of us will be coming soon, you need to know what to expect."

"What do you mean?" Bones interjected. "You going to show us something about the rest of your crew?"

The huge blond cast a look over his shoulder, his eyes unbelievably blue and dark.

"No. I want to show you something about Khan. For better or worse we are going to work together. Khan's orders are very clear. You will not have a problem with any crewmember that is awakened, no matter what happens to them, as long as Khan doesn't change his orders."

Jim raised his eyebrows and shared a concerned look with Bones. He didn't like the absolute obedience Turin was implying. Didn't trust it, frankly. It would have been much better if every new crewmember made up his own mind, not only just blindly following Khan.

"What about Khan?" Jim asked, because he was still unhealthily hung up on the guy and getting a chance to know more about him, from his second in command was just too good to pass up.

"This man you have known. The man I met after being woken up... That is not the Khan I knew for decades. He’s changed so dramatically, so much, he is almost a stranger." Turin spoke as he worked. "When we went to sleep we hoped to wake up in better, more peaceful times. All we found though, was that humans managed to reach even greater heights of cruelty than ever imagined."

"That's not fair!" Jim objected. "There’s always going to be a bad seed somewhere. We are humans, we are many and varied. Just like I know there are different people among you." Jim defended hotly.

"That is why I want to show you the Khan I remember. To make you understand that whatever crimes he committed, it was in reaction to things you humans did to him in this time."

"Okay. Show me then."

"I found this in one of the old news archives. Back before we went to sleep, we had a real problem with paparazzi. They were like cockroaches, absolutely everywhere. Somehow, somebody always got a recording of private events. This is one of such things." Turin spoke as the screen showed the buffering notification, obviously loading a video. "We were celebrating the New Year most of the Augments affiliated with Khan, near New Delhi gathered together then."

The sound came up first. It was very noisy some kind of rhythmic music played in the background and there a lot of voices, talking and laughing, making it hard to understand anything. At first the screen was just a blob of color, twitching back and forth before it sharpened. It was a bar of some kind. There were people dressed in the clothes of that era, closely tailored shirts with sharp collars, tee shirts and jackets. Some were dressed in obviously tailored clothes, some were dressed casually, one or two were in some kind of military uniform. They stood in groups, some danced to the music in the background, most were smiling or laughing. Between them there were waitresses with trays full of colorful drinks busily working the room. The angle of the camera made it clear that it was hidden somewhere on the waitress and that people in the bar were unaware of it.

It was a bit jarring to suddenly see Turin on screen, his hair a bit longer, wearing a tight blue tee shirt and what looked like black jeans. He had a paper hat on his head and there were a few silver streamers caught in his hair. He had a look of manic glee as he crossed screen with purpose, obviously looking for somebody. Then there were a few strange faces until the crowd parted, showing a quieter part of the bar, the sections with the tables.

Almost all of them were taken, two or three people at each, sometimes fours squeezed very close. But Jim immediately noticed what Turin wanted him to see.

On the left side of the screen he saw a small table with two people. One was a dark haired woman sitting mostly with her back to the camera, so Jim couldn't discern much about her, but it was her companion that made him stare.

There, sitting backwards on a chair was Khan, as Jim had never seen him. His hair was in a bit of disarray, longer fringe falling haphazardly onto his face. He was dressed in something dark that looked a lot like a leather jacket. His arms rested on the table and there was a cigarette in his hand. The smoke was rising up and curling over his face. Unlike the stiff posture he was known for now, he was more relaxed. Leaning forward to talk to the woman, he looked more stunningly attractive than Jim had ever seen him. What happened next took Jim aback. Suddenly Khan leant back on the chair and laughed. Wide and open, he looked like a completely different person. He shook his head, lowering it, and Jim noticed the long, complicated braid slithering down his back.

He looked dangerous and sexy, easy with his body and the people around him. It was almost a revelation to see him like that.

Suddenly Turin came into view, all but draping himself over Khan's back and stealing away his cigarette. Khan tipped his head back to look at Ao upside down, saying something to him but the blonde only laughed and winked at the dark haired Augment. With another smile on his face, Khan drained the drink in front of him and stood up. He looked slimmer than now, or it was just the tailoring of the leather jacket. He looked at the woman with him, smiled that wide, charming smile again that looked like it belonged to somebody completely different, and extended his hand, very obviously asking her to dance.

Something jarred the camera, making the image blur and then disappear completely.

“This is the man I knew.”

Jim was still staring at the replay button displayed on the screen, unable to say anything. Khan was so different there. It boggled the mind that the scary psychopath, the intense and viciously angry man was a product of this century, of people from this time. It didn’t excuse anything he did but it did explain a lot.

Maybe even too much.

Jim wasn’t really sure now if he ever wanted to know what actually happened to Khan to bring out his most destructive, most dangerous side quite this much.

  
The blond didn’t notice Turin and Bones leaving the room, letting him think in peace, giving him time to understand that Khan was not only intelligent, manipulative, dangerous and driven. He was also deeply damaged, and that wasn’t something Jim had considered before.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> becasue somebody asked - I will do another file - Carnival of Rust - the whole series in one file for easier downloading.

Scotty would be grateful if somebody explained to him, just how he ended up in situations like this. He was supposed to be a Chief engineer. He was supposed to be elbow deep in warp drive, or the new stabilization systems that Starfleet had delivered for installation on the Enterprise. What he wasn’t supposed to be doing was skulking in some commercial transport station in the middle of nowhere with an Augmented woman at his side.

As it tended to happen with him, everything went to shit the moment they touched down. The whole identification process went without a hitch, their identities confirmed, ship accepted, orders processed and put through seamlessly. It looked to be an easy and straightforward mission. Just go in, switch barcodes and get the container with the pod instead of the fictitious one they added to the base systems.

However, the moment they left the docking bay and entered the station proper they were met with chaos. Total chaos.

There were people everywhere. There were workstations set up in corridors that were supposed to be empty, in the large area that was meant to be used as maneuvering space for repair bots the found a freaking open-space set up with three dozen work stations of IT personnel.

It turned out that a day before their arrival, the whole upper level of the station was flooded with waste from a broken pipe. The upper areas were devoted to administration, containing workstations for IT support for most of this sector’s stations, as well as other personnel. Due to the fact they couldn’t stop working, as their jobs were vital enough to require a 24/7 coverage, their workstations were crammed into every inch of available space on the lower level. Including the storage level. The fucking level where Scotty and Katya were supposed to break in! Also because of the tumult of people now on the level, guards were patrolling every thirty minutes instead of on the anticipated hourly schedule.

Due to all this, they were now almost tripping over people. And because of this chaos, it took Scotty two attempts to even find the proper storage bay. But they did, even figuring out how to get in. What they couldn’t be sure of was if they would manage to make the switch before the guards showed up. Any kind of altercation in this crowd would be impossible.

Scotty looked at Katya, who seemed as tense as him, and engaged the manual override to storage bay 13-AZ1. They slid in as soon as the door started opening and engaged the lock again. The problem with manual override was that while it did open the door, it did nothing to the systems that would show two lifesigns inside. They couldn’t interfere with the security systems of the station, because it was a closed system, closely monitored by Starfleet Security Department. The only thing they could influence was the Shipping Department and they did. So now it was all a matter of time and efficiency.

When the door closed, the lights started coming on slowly. It was obvious that more power was rerouted to the temporary workstations, and inside the storage space was barely lit, lights glowed at less than 15%. It took them a moment to realize what they were seeing.

The warehouse was supposed to contain twenty-six shipping containers with specific security clearance. When all of the lights finally came on, he heard Katya suck in a breath.

The space was packed full, wall-to-wall with containers of different shapes, sizes and type. 

“They must have needed more space for the IT people,” Scotty muttered, eying the total mess, “and decided to move some things in here, probably to free a warehouse or two.” 

Katya was looking at the hundreds of containers with clear horror on her face. 

It was going to take them hours.

“I’ll start on the left,” Scotty decided. “Check only the containers furthest back. It was here before they started adding things, so I’d reckon it would have been pushed back to make more space.”

They went to work as quickly as they could, using small hand-held scanners to check the barcodes on every container they could reach, the mess and the poor lighting not helping things.

It took them almost a full thirty minutes before Scotty finally stumbled on the correct container, his scanner beeping confirmation at him. With a sigh, he pulled out the new barcode and managed to pin it over the old one. The moment his hands were free he heard Katya curse at the other end of the warehouse and then her quick steps approaching. She was running and the engineer couldn’t figure out just what caused that reaction before he heard it too. The lock was starting to engage.

He froze. His mind went blank. He had no idea how to explain their presence in here. He just managed to straighten up when Katya skidded to a stop in front of him. Before he even understood what was going on, Katya shook her hair free from the tight bun she’d worn it in, then pulled her shirt up and off, revealing a plain white bra and a frankly gorgeous set of breasts.

Scotty kept staring dumbly as she huffed and then all but threw herself to her knees in front of him.

Scotty's mind screeched to a standstill, jaw dropping unattractively as he made sounds similar to those of a dying pig, as Katya reached for his wait and quickly pulled his fly open. Most of Scotty’s brain was still on vacation while a small, still active part was busily recording the action without any understanding of it.

Katya jerked both his pants and underwear down his legs, causing him to utter another embarrassing sound.

“Play along!” she hissed angrily, as she leaned forward and mashed her face into his lower belly with an expression that heralded the distinct possibility of things being bitten off. Suddenly, Scotty was trapped between two very opposable sensations. On one hand there was a beautiful woman with her face mashed against his naked cock. Naked! On the other, there was a very real possibility of that same part of his anatomy being forcefully disconnected from his body.

Later he would wonder how the guards who entered in that same moment could mistake the total terror on his face as something else.

As the door opened, letting more light in, the guards doing their rounds saw a man with his pants around his ankles, flushed and panting as a woman kneeled in front of him, giving him head. Obviously.

Scotty was however very sure that his flailing and stammering at the sight of the two men was very realistic. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be covering - his family jewels or Katya’s naked chest, or both at the same time. He was so flustered, he tried to take a step and fell over, his legs getting tangled up his in his own pants. 

Eventually the guards let them get dressed, probably because Katya started crying and sniffling, while still only in her bra. They were yelled at by the guards, then by their superior, but eventually they were let go.

Still dazed, Scotty managed to stumble back to their transport, not once looking Katya in the face.

* * *

 

Pavel Chekov sighed and rubbed his eyes. For the last four weeks he was working on a patch for the targeting software used to calculate objects’ positions in order to have them beamed up. It was a generally accepted rule that the transporter couldn’t target objects in motion. He’d proved, more that once, that he could manually calculate trajectories with enough precision to capture objects moving at great speed. However, a problem remained with both software and hardware. While the computer could run the calculations at a lightning-fast speed and computer simultaneous calculations, the process still didn’t operate properly. After working on it on-and-off for months, Chekov began to suspect the problem was the speed at which data was delivered to the software.

So far, he’d not been having a good few months. When he’d become a regular member of Alpha shift with Captain Kirk and the other most trusted officers, he’d been really pleased; his skills were being validated by his peers, by people who turned out to be nothing less than modern heroes. 

He was also the youngest member of the Enterprise crew and expected that he would be treated a bit differently because of his age. The double standard sometimes got his hackles up, but for the most part he tried to remember that people acted that way out of genuine fondness. It was lonely though. He might have been barely seventeen when he joined the Enterprise for her first mission with Admiral Pike, but that had been a few years ago. It rankled that no one saw him as the young man he was. Everybody had a chance to start a relationship, the closed environment of the ship forced any and all relationships to be amongst one another in the crew. It’d would be too difficult to find a lover outside of the crew when you were in space for a few years at a stretch. Even though he fought it, sometimes he felt really bitter about being regarded as “the kid” all the time.

Well, most of the time.

As a junior member of Kirk’s crew, Chekov wasn’t informed of the captain’s plans, nobody asked if he disagreed with them, or even if they were a good idea. To be honest, he couldn’t ever imagine what kinds of problems it might cause if his opinions were sought in the first place.

He rubbed his neck, it hurt from sitting in a hunched position for hours. He wasn’t getting any further in his work, probably because he kept switching to the internet search he had opened in another window. He couldn’t stop himself from checking for news about Sasha. She was his half-sister, older than him by ten years. She was his father’s daughter from his first marriage. For as long as he’d known her, she’d never really gotten along with his dad, but she liked Pavel and he liked her. Those rare times she came to visit, they would spend time together. For a woman ten years older than him, she seemed to understand Pavel’s mind better than his own family. It was a revelation, knowing her, talking to her. Even though they didn’t spend much time together, she was extremely important to him. As a result, he couldn’t now stop himself from checking the interplanetary news for Theta Cyllis news. Sasha had left home to travel when she was barely sixteen, and visited very rarely. As a child, he’d always seen her as a hero, a brave explorer. She was always full of incredible stories and pictures when she did come to visit, so different from what he knew of his parents. They loved him very much, Pavel was sure of that, but the sad truth was, as a child born in their later years,they couldn’t really understand his curiosity for new things, for adventure.

Now Sasha was involved in a drug smuggling case of all things. It wouldn’t even be that bad if it was anywhere other than Theta Cyllis. It wouldn’t even be the first time Pavel used his own money to bail Sasha out of trouble, pay her tickets, fines, or just buy her passage home from whatever planet she was currently on. This Theta Cyllis business was worse this time. Much worse. 

Punishment for possessing, trafficking, or distribution of substances classified as drugs on their planet was death.

Sasha was facing the death penalty.

Pavel knew that fact that the Sarfleet Division for Interplanetary Accidents, DIA for short, had become interested in Shasha just when Captain Kirk brought back the Augment. His sister’s trial was first stalled due to procedural technicalities, and now their lawyer found another few loopholes that ensured the trial couldn’t start. In all, they’d stalled the courts for many months already, but it wasn’t enough. Eventually there would be nothing to stop the trial from properly carrying on. That was why Pavel had been contacted and informed in no uncertain terms that the whole fiasco could be easily dismissed, could be nothing but a bad memory, if he were willing to help the authorities keep track of the dangerous Augments. After all, there was a risk the captain was being influenced by the blood that had been used to save him. And everyone knew the Augments couldn’t be trusted. It was only reasonable that the authorities keep track of how many were awake and who they were. At first, all Chekov needed to do was transmit innocuous data, just names and descriptions of the newly arrived Augments. But every time he had,he could sense how disappointed the DIA were. They needed more. They needed more data, more information, things Pavel had no access to. They wanted to know things about the captain, private things, that Pavel didn’t feel comfortable divulging. 

Whatever he did, it never seemed enough.

At first the information was so innocuous, it was easy to convince himself he wasn’t doing anything bad. After all, the Augments really were dangerous and his sister’s life depended on just a few names! But the demands were coming faster and harder, the DIA wanted more and more, and not only did he not know the things they wanted, he didn’t know how to obtain them! By the time he realised how deep he’d dug himself, he could no longer go to his friends for help because they would think he’d betrayed them. Even though he’d never said anything about them! But things looked bad, very bad for someone on the outside.

Around the same time his information stopped being sufficient, Pavel started getting messages from HQ that his performance was going to be reviewed in light of some recent inconsistencies. It terrified him even more because the tone of the messages was easy to interpret; they were unhappy with him and were threatening his job. Already his pay was docked significantly because of his ‘insubordination’ and willing participation in the ‘illegal’ mission with Captain Kirk.

He couldn’t go to his friends and cry because he was earning less. They would think he was greedy and shallow. It wasn’t true, but he doubted people would understand his situation.

As a mathematical prodigy he’d been accepted into Starfleet Academy at the age of thirteen. By the time he was seventeen, he’d already been commissioned to the Enterprise. Most people didn’t understand what that meant. He was the youngest navigator in the history of Starfleet. He started earning money at the age of fourteen when, during the coursework, he also worked with a design team, helping calculate resistance vectors for new warp propulsion, and later helping design encryption algorithms. He paid off his parents’ mortgage before he was sixteen. A year after he was assigned to the Enterprise, he managed to save enough money that his mother could finally retire from her teaching job. Now that his father’s health was steadily declining due to age, he had to pay enormous hospital bills for procedures. He did it gladly, he loved his parents and they loved him. 

He’d worked and earned money effectively from the age of fourteen. Most people didn’t realise that if Starfleet decided to let Pavel go, he would not only be completely broke, but he’d also be completely destroyed. Because of the age he’d been accepted into service and the delicate nature of the work he did for Starfleet before being assigned to the Enterprise, he’d had to sign an incredible number of disclosure agreements. He was allowed to use his knowledge only while working for Starfleet. He could not be a navigator, he wouldn’t even be allowed to work with computerised systems for the next twenty five years if he were discharged.

His parents were getting old and sick, that was the truth of life. His his sister, while a lovely person, couldn’t really take care of herself. Pavel couldn't afford to love his source of income because he had people depending on him for survival, not mention that he’d be left sweeping the streets if he had to leave Starfleet.

It was a miracle that Ao Turin happened to use the same communal shower as Pavel did and notice the young navigator. Chekov had no idea if it was actually more a desire for the blond who looked like a dream come true to Pavel (who’d always liked big men), or the heady sense of relief at catching the Augment's interest. By that point, he could barely sleep from worry over his family and his future.

Therefore when Ao had expressed interest, Pavel was weak in the knees, and not just from desire. 

Ao was a big man. Really big. Really, really impressive in all respects. And Pavel, as it happened, had a huge weakness for men who could bend him in half without really trying. Turin was intense and dominating in bed, but also very playful and surprisingly open. From what Pavel could tell, his personality couldn’t be more different than Khan’s.

It helped that he would tell things to Pavel. Chekov had no idea why, because as desperate as he was, he had no idea how to get the information. The fact that Ao freely offered it to him, was making Pavel’s live much easier.

He was smart enough to realise that it wasn’t an accident, that Ao had to have had a reason to be this open, because he didn’t strike Pavel as a stupid man. 

When his door chime rang, Pavel closed his workstation and got up. Whatever consequences he’d have to face, he would do it in time. He was already in too deep, with no way out.


	5. Chapter 5

Jim sat in his room and wondered, not for the first time, if this whole deal with Khan was worth it. He wanted to live, wanted to be free, wanted to save Starfleet from the cancer Admiral Marcus introduced into it. It seemed like such a brilliant idea. Save himself, save Khan, show him a better way, build a grounding for future alliance. One without threats or manipulation. It astounded Jim that he seemed to be the only one to actually see the potential of having the Augments assimilated, or at least friendly towards humanity.

As he added his electronic signature to the transmission he hadn’t yet sent, he felt very tired. It seemed like there were obstacles through every tiny step of his way. There were constant demands on his money, his time, his favors…just to keep a few people alive. 

And now. 

Now he was considering sacrificing another small part of himself, agreeing to do something he knew wasn’t totally right. But in the grand scheme of things, this was just a small, insignificant thing.

With a heavy sigh, he set the transmission to send. There was no use procrastinating. He knew he’d send it anyway; he couldn’t risk the higher-ups getting too curious about his actions now. Not when he was actually managing to start getting Khan’s people. The Augment never said it, but Jim could not only see, but also feel how much it meant to Khan. And after seeing Katya’s awakening, Jim knew he would do anything he could, no matter the cost to himself. No being should be subjected to this kind of pain.

So when the Admiralty asked for an endorsement of their new project, he provided it. They were building a new mine on a distant planet that was culturally set against industrialization. There was no way the local ruler would allow the construction. But during one of his previous missions Kirk saved the Chieftan’s life, earning himself a place of high honor in their society. 

His words would most probably sway the Chieftan’s mind, but Kirk was sure he would never be able to look him in the eye again. A year ago he was so sure of what was right and what was wrong, he was sure he would never do the things Khan did which condemned him as a criminal.

Now Jim no longer held that conviction.

* * *

Scotty signed the last document and watched as the container was loaded on the antigrav rollers and into the shuttle. He was aware of the smirks sent in his direction from the men overseeing the loading procedure, and although it made him uncomfortable, it was much preferable to facing Katya in the shuttle. The Augmented woman seemed cool as a cucumber while Scotty felt as if his his ears were on fire every time he caught her eye. She’d seen him naked! Naked! Also, he kept thinking about her in her underwear. It was not conductive to a proper working relationship and he missed Keenser, at least with the little alien Scotty didn’t have trouble like this.

As the container was secured and Katya started to lift the shuttle out of the bay, the engineer looked at the secured container. He was curious who it was, if it was one person or many... surely opening it would cause no harm. As much as he could see it was an ordinary long-term storage container designed for easy transport in space. It had no power source, so it couldn’t be powering any technology inside.

He hit the comm button.

“Once you set us on autopilot come here Katya. I want to open the container and see what’s inside.”

“Three minutes,” came the clear response. As much as he was uncomfortable around her right now, Katya was an incredibly efficient worker, and it was a pleasure to be assigned with her. Provided he could ever look her in the eye again.

By the time he heard her quiet steps approaching, he had everything prepared.

“Ready?” he asked, not taking his eyes away from the manual release controls of the container.

“Yes.” They had both been trained to follow emergency revival procedures, but it was more important to have at least one Augment present. There were a couple of reasons for this: only an Augment could readily restrain another Augment, and also, since they could immediately recognize one another, it was hoped that it would ensure immediate cooperation.

Scotty was obviously hoping no drastic measures would be needed, and that any revival that would be taking place would be onboard of Enterprise not this fairly small and flimsy shuttle.

When the side of the container pinged open, they both jumped. Inside was so dark that Scotty couldn’t see very much, so he got hold of a portable torch usually used for repairs in hard-to-reach spaces, and handed it to Katya, who was already on all fours, crawling into the container.

As soon as she pulled the light inside the container, Scotty could see two fairly oblong shapes. 

Two cryotubes! 

Katya crawled in deeper, trying to reach the glass that would let her see the faces inside. She made an odd sound, a hissed indrawn breath as she reached the head of the first pod. More curious that was healthy, Scotty crawled in after her. The woman inside the closest pod was…beautiful. Even pale and frosted over, he could see the angles of her face. Once awake, she would be a stunning woman, he was sure.

“What is it?” He questioned Katya, who still had the odd look in her eyes.

“It’s Scarlett.” 

“Is that bad?” Scotty asked, not understanding her response.

She was quiet for a very long time, only staring at the woman in the pod.

“I’m not sure,” she answered finally, still that odd tone in her voice.

Scotty obviously was missing something, but instead of pressing her for more, he decided to keep that suspicion to himself and pass any misgivings on to Jim as soon as possible.

“And the other one?”

Katay had to do a lot of twisting and turning in the tight space between the pods to be able to look at the other one. Eventually she was in position and reached for the light again. As soon as she had a good look at the pod, she jerked back dropping the light with a loud clang.

“What! What happened!” Scotty jerked, surprised by the sudden move.

Katay was very still, not even breathing as she looked down at the pod, her face…devastated.

“Katya?” he pressed, already looking for a way to get to her side, even though there really wasn’t any space for him.

“It’s empty,” she finally said, her voice like cracked stone.

“Oh.” He sat down hard. The previous elation of rescuing two people instead of one was now gone, to be replaced with a bitter taste in his mouth.

* * *

Jim found Khan on the observation deck, even though the ship computer kept insisting no person of such name was currently onboard.

“You hacked my ship again,” he complained good naturedly as he approached the seated figure, gazing out the portal.

Khan didn’t look at him or in any obvious way acknowledge him, but Jim could feel that tingle that signalled the connection between them opening a bit wider before it was locked into barely a blip again.

Jim sighed at the stubborn man and took a seat beside him. Khan was dressed in his customary black uniform, his hair neatly combed back, giving him a more severe look. His face was immobile now, masking his true emotions from most people. 

 

Most, but not all. 

Jim sat beside the Augment in silence and wondered how to tell him the news he received from Scotty. Two pods. One empty, the occupant most probably dead.

“I received a transmission from Scotty. They’re coming back,” Jim started, unwilling to say the worst thing outright.

At this, Khan turned to look at him, the pale eyes almost burning into Jim.

“They retrieved the container successfully.” Jim swallowed. “It contained two pods.” 

He hesitated and saw Khan’s nostrils flare, even while his face remained locked in that focused, intense mask of his. Not for the first time, Jim wondered just how much information Khan derived from his sense of smell, just how much he was still keeping hidden. He wondered if there would ever come a day when they would be able to fully trust each other.

“One of the pods is empty. I’m so sorry Khan,” Jim admitted, feeling as the bond suddenly was reduced to almost nothing.

Outwardly Khan didn’t react. His face remained impassive, his sharp cheekbones throwing odd shadows on his cheeks, but his eyes were burning. There was a sense of power, of barely-restrained violence in the man even though he didn’t move an inch. The very air between them was charged like the atmosphere before a storm, full of electricity and potential.

“And the other one?” Khan’s voice was low again, a velvety threat that shivered through Jim’s bones. This man had such a magnetic effect on him; the captain never knew what to expect.

“Katya identified the occupant as a female named Scarlett.”

The effect on the Augment was stunning. The other man actually flinched, as if struck. For a split second his pale, intense eyes were unguarded in a way Jim had never seen them before. They were a maelstrom of emotions Jim could never hope to understand, before Khan slammed his iron control over them and smoothed his expression into that focused blankness he often wore.

Jim waited a bit, but Khan said nothing more.

“Their ETA is 48 hours. I already contacted Spock and Uhura to come back. We can revive her as soon as the shuttle comes back.”

Khan nodded and rose, his powerful body unfolding from the chair with a grace that always, always took Jim’s breath away. All those muscles, all that power so ruthlessly controlled. Even though he’d had Khan in his bed more than once, it still took Jim’s breath away. It was simply ridiculous just how affected he was by Khan.

As the Augment passed him, Jim caught his wrist and tried to stop him.

“Are you all right?” He knew it was a stupid question as soon as it left his lips. Of course Khan wasn't all right. One of his crew was most probably dead.

Something fierce ghosted over Khan’s face before it smoothed over. 

The augment was almost gentle as he used his other hand to pry Jim’s fingers loose from his wrist. His hand was warm but firm, the strength unyielding. Jim wondered just how much of that strength the Augment had used so far to keep going, and how much more he could take.

“You don’t have to mourn alone,” Jim said urgently, hoping against hope that for once Khan would listen. 

Khan didn’t look at him as he quietly left the observation deck. 

* * *

McCoy had opened two cryopods so far, so with this third one, he was noticeably more sure of himself, faster, more efficient. Khan stood over the pod, watching the doctor work carefully. Katya couldn't remember exactly who was awake while they were in Admiral Marcus' hands and frankly, no one wanted to ask her to remember. The fact she was forced to watch her husband be tortured to death and then learn her child was dead was almost too much for one person to bear. Still, it meant that every new pod they found ran the risk of belonging to another traumatized Augment. Katya, upon awakening was in anguish but not aggressive. Turin was frighteningly competent. Jim was legitimately scared of opening a pod only to find a terrified, crazed man capable of tearing half the ship to shreds with his bare hands. Besides, there was something odd about this woman, there was a note of tension in the way both Katya and Turin said this woman's name. And there was also the way Khan had all but flinched at her name too.

That was why Khan was standing immediately over the pod. Jim, Spock, Scotty and Uhura were situated close to the door with Turin standing a little bit in front of them. Katya stayed at the far end, oddly apprehensive. The whole scene was markedly different from both times before.

Katya seemed distant, unwilling to come too close. Turin was tense, watchful and wary in a way he rarely was, both because of his outgoing personality and because, Jim suspected, even among the Augments there was barely anyone capable of actually getting past him.

Khan was also different. He kept himself extremely still, extremely cut off. All Jim could gather from him was a strange sense of anticipation, almost nervousness. His pale eyes were so focused on the pod, it was as if he wanted to burn through the layers of metal with his will alone.

Finally the lights flashing McCoy's progress all turned green and the pod opened with a hiss.

White gasses hissed out, obscuring the view momentarily, while the top part of the cryopod opened slowly.

From his position, Jim couldn't see much beyond pale skin and dark hair. The woman stirred and opened her eyes. She did not thrash, nor react in any obvious way.

"Scarlett," Khan called, his voice falling into the lowest possible register, sending a shiver up Jim’s spine. He’d never heard Khan sound quite like this. 

The woman extended her hand, and Khan immediately took hold of those slender fingers. Immediately she pulled herself into a sitting position and then up to a standing one. As she unfolded her slender frame, Jim could finally see her clearly. She was dressed in the same grey, body-fitting uniform all Augments wore in their pods, but she seemed somehow different from those woken before.

There was a sense of absolute control of her body, the masterful way she stood up in the pod without a single stumble, all grace and power. It was like deja-vu. It took Jim a second to realise that the sense of familiarity he was experiencing now was due to an eerie similarity to the way Khan moved. They both had the same aura of unrestrained, power about them. The first thing Jim noticed about her was the mass of black, wavy hair that reached all the way down to her hips. She was tall, even standing the way she was in the pod, she looked to be as tall as Khan. Her body was also extremely different to Katya's. While the redhead was slim and willowy, this woman had a body of Greek sculptures. She was all stunning curves and a veritable fantasy of a woman. Her face was pale and her features very delicate. Her long, black lashes swept her cheeks before she opened her brown eyes again. As with Khan and Katya, her irises were extremely pale, verging on golden rather than brown and her lips were very full and red.

She held her head high and her eyes fixed unerringly on Khan. There was no fear in her. No hesitation. No doubt. 

Still holding onto the hand Khan offered her, she stepped out from the pod.

She was barefoot, and she moved so gracefully it was hard to tear eyes away from her. Almost delicately she stepped away from the tube, her pale eyes still focused solely on Khan.

"How long?" she asked in a low, velvety voice.

It was ridiculous just how beautiful she was.

"Three hundred years," Khan answered, never taking his eyes from her.

Now she glanced quickly over the equipment surrounding her and McCoy, trying to get a scan on her without getting too close.

"You miscalculated," she stated in the same calm voice.

Yes, she was stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful.

She was also colder than anyone Jim had ever met.

"I am glad to see you well," Khan all-but-rumbled, his voice still skimming those unbelievable registers, making a thread of sudden jealousy uncurl in Jim’s belly.

“Khan,” she answered, coming close to Khan and pressing her forehead against his in an oddly intimate greeting, jarring with the coldness she’d displayed till then.

Khan raised his hand to the side of her neck and rested it there, reassuring himself that she was alive and well. In response, she ghosted her own hand over Khan’s hair. She did it only once and immediately dropped her hand. If Jim hadn’t eavesdropped on Khan’s and Turin’s conversation, he would have never known the significance of that tiny move. It made him swallow thickly and avert his eyes for a moment.

When he looked at them again they were no longer touching but Khan was watching Jim, the pale eyes narrowed and thoughtful.

Jim swallowed. He knew he watched the Augment way too much, but he also had the impression that Khan kept a surprisingly close eye on him as well. The older Augment liked to needle Jim during conversation, attacking him over and over about his beliefs, his supposed naivety and his lack of experience. While the man didn’t get along with any of the Enterprise crew, he made it a point of hounding Jim.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite chemist!” Turin greeted with an obviously fake smile. It was surprisingly surreal, to hear the note of falseness in Turin’s voice.

The woman turned her eyes towards him, tilted her chin up to look at him down her nose, and smiled as artificially as Turin.

“If it isn’t the mutt. I rather hoped your tub would have malfunctioned by now.”

Turin made it to the middle of the room, fake smile still firmly in place. Everybody else froze, stunned at hearing such obvious malice in both their tones.

“I see the three hundred year nap didn’t improve your hag tendencies any, Scarlett.”

“Children,” scolded Khan gently.

The Augments tore their eyes away from each other with a mute promise of further hostilities later. Yet as captain, Jim felt a bit envious. He probably couldn’t stop a quarrel with barely a word.

“I expect you to work with the humans here, they are our allies at the moment,” Khan continued, pretending not to notice the glares exchanged between Turin and Scarlett. The woman looked devastating even giving the evil eye she levied at the blond. However, at hearing Khan’s words she snapped back to her leader.

“You must be joking.” There was a healthy dose of disbelief and not a small measure of contempt as she looked over the people in the medbay.

Khan said nothing, just kept his eyes steady as she looked from him to the Enterprise crew gathered around her. Finally she exhaled lightly and lowered her eyes for a brief moment, a ghost of a bow in her move. There was something ethereal and royal in her mien; the simplest gestures captured attention like nobody Jim had seen before.

"Please don't move," McCoy interjected finally. "I need to ascertain that there are no side effects of your cryosleep."

The woman turned her face towards the doctor and cast him a freezing glance.

"You?" she sneered. "You are too blind to notice that your own scans have already finished running, and judging by color scheme on the panel behind you, I assume that humans are still naively attached to the dashboards for warnings. Since all data appearing on the displays is in the green, it should be obvious all my vital signs are in perfect order. As for my higher brain functions, you are severely under-qualified to judge those. " She turned away from McCoy, the man still gaping at her, and turned back to Khan, effectively dismissing the doctor.

"I require suitable clothing, a meal, and debriefing. I can start work immediately if this vessel has an adequate laboratory somewhere." The 'I doubt it has' was all but said aloud.

She started moving in perfect synch with Khan, walking with her head held high and not even making an effort to introduce herself to anyone gathered in the medbay.

Within seconds, she swooped out of the room with Khan, Katya following behind them.

Turin stayed, watching them go with a frown on his face.

Everybody was quiet for a long while after Scarlett left.

"Wow," Jim said finally. "That was..."

"Scarlett," Turin interjected as if it explained everything. "And believe it or not, that was almost charming for her. She must feel very under the weather."

"Is she always like that?" Uhura asked, finally finding her voice.

Turin scoffed.

"There are some things you need to know about her," the blond decided. "Scarlett is a savant. She is, without any doubt, the most dangerous person you will ever meet. In terms of intelligence, she can run circles around Khan, and he was supposed to be the best and brightest of as all. She is also a sociopath. Her whole life is dictated by cold, hard logic. She has never known or felt pity, mercy, any of those cumbersome emotions. Do not be offended, Doctor." Turin glanced at McCoy "She abhors everybody, sees them as beneath her, be it Human or Augment. The only reason she hadn't become the cruelest and most devastating leader of the Eugenics War was because she couldn't be bothered."

"Is she a threat?" Jim asked the blond; it was his ship, his people in danger because of his harebrained plan to save the Augments.

Turin sighed.

"Like we all, Scarlett is loyal to Khan. No matter her personal opinion, she will never disobey his orders." There was an odd look in the blond’s vivid eyes. "If not directly engaged, she tends to remain passive."

The end  
19-07-2015


End file.
